


Surrender

by prairiecrow



Series: Lethe's Curse [15]
Category: ReBoot (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Love, M/M, Memory Alteration
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-07
Updated: 2012-04-07
Packaged: 2017-11-03 05:26:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/377778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prairiecrow/pseuds/prairiecrow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Megabyte's memories of his existence before coming to Lethe have been given back to him, resulting in a choice that has left him shaken to his core.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Surrender

**Author's Note:**

> Major spoilers for later chapters of "Lethe's Curse". Takes place after Megabyte has killed the Red King and taken his place, appointing Bob as his Champion. This story is set perhaps three months after Megabyte rose to the throne of Omalan.

The late autumn rain drove down hard and cold, striking a fine mist from Megabyte's armoured body where he stood on the tallest spire of exposed rock for miles, gazing across the restless sea of tossing trees that extended to the horizon. He made no attempt to seek shelter or to shield himself from the storm; after all, even a direct lightning strike would have little effect upon him, and any physical injury would pale in comparison to his state of internal devastation.

He knew what he was now, and more importantly what he had been before coming to the shores of Lethe. The Lady of Mnemosyne had given him that poisonous gift, and with it the choice: to remain in Omalan and lead that Domain to bloody war against the terrible forces behind the Citadel of Memory, or to return to his kingdom in the universe he'd left behind and let another take his place here, on the throne of the Red King. 

He knew what Bob had been, too, and that in Mainframe they had been relentless and bitter enemies. And he also knew that what he had hated he now cherished, because in the Hall of Judgement he had turned his back on the portal that would have returned him to his original destiny and the acquisition of more territory and power than even fantastical Lethe could offer, and he had stated that he would take up arms against the dreaded Citadel, whatever the cost.

The pure rain washed over him but could not touch the bitterness that seethed in his hearts — or the new alien light that illuminated every convoluted contour of his vast and intricate mind. _Love_. Such a little word, and one he had always scorned, viewing its presence in others as contemptible weakness or, at best, a flaw that he could exploit. But offered the choice between easy and glorious military triumph, which he'd always held as his highest good, and the merely personal gratification of one man's cocky smile and warm amber eyes, he had acted on pure and decisive instinct, and in so doing betrayed everything he had ever stood for.

 _I will stand with Omalan,_  he had announced before the rulers of all of Lethe's Domains, but in his hearts he had quietly vowed: _I will stand with him._  Yet as appalling as that statement of commitment must necessarily be to one who had been created to walk alone and to prey upon all who crossed his path, perhaps all was not completely lost. He was the Immortal Lord of the Enthralled still, the chemical bonds of his glamour entwined with thousands of infected minds — he had not forsaken his essential nature, even if there was one creature in this world who had the power to lay a warm hand on his icy spirit and bend the stern steel of him with the fragility of mere flesh and blood. And in weeks to come the Citadel would bear witness to the savagery of his aggression, the backs of its minions broken beneath his heel, the celestial River running red with the lives his own claws had severed. His name — "Megabyte!" — would become a cry of terror on the lips of multitudes, and all of Lethe would learn that neither mercy nor quarter could be won once he had set his fiery gaze upon his enemies.

A distant sound — the hoofbeats of approaching horses, a party of ten — caught his attention. He turned his head slightly, the better to pick up the faint vibrations through his crest. They were too far away yet to be seen amidst the orange and gold of the trees, but they were coming from the north, from Cestiala, and he had no doubt that one of the riders bore the standard of the kingdom's Champion.

Megabyte turned his gaze back toward the south, toward the lands he would soon be called upon to defend at any price. Bob would see him on the height and would come to him in due time, full of demanding questions, his scowl not quite concealing the gaze of love that Megabyte had come to accept as his due. Only now he knew that something in him answered that gaze in kind, a shaft of hot radiance released from his darkest depths to pierce the obsidian glacier of his soul… and against this foe he had neither attack nor defence, only the possibility that his surrender would remain a secret unspoken, a lethal vulnerability concealed in a cloak of most intricate lies.

THE END


End file.
